The Walt Disney Company made two significant leadership announcements within 24 hours of each other this week, naming Karandeep Anand to the newly created role of Chief Technology Officer and promoting Adam Smith to Chairman, Direct-to-Consumer, Disney Entertainment, a pair of moves that point to CEO Josh D’Amaro doubling down on technology as a growth driver across the company.
Anand’s hire was announced September 18. He joins Disney as Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer effective October 2, reporting directly to D’Amaro. Anand most recently served as CEO of Character.AI, and a number of that company’s technical team are expected to join Disney alongside him. Before Character.AI, he was President and Chief Product Officer at Brex, held several leadership roles at Meta including Vice President of Ads and Business Products, and spent 15 years at Microsoft, where he was part of the team that built the Azure platform. In his new role, Anand will oversee enterprise technology, infrastructure, data, AI platforms, product, and engineering across Disney’s segment technology teams. D’Amaro described him as “technical and product-minded, with sharp instincts for what fans actually want,” tying the hire directly to Disney’s push to deepen its direct relationships with fans through a more connected Disney+ experience.
The day before, on September 17, Disney announced that Adam Smith would become Chairman, Direct-to-Consumer, Disney Entertainment, overseeing Disney+ and Hulu globally, including product, engineering, advertising technology, programming strategy, viewer experience, partnerships, and data and analytics. Smith joined Disney in 2024 and most recently served as Co-President, Direct-to-Consumer and Chief Product and Technology Officer for Disney Entertainment and ESPN, following more than 20 years at Google and YouTube. Alongside Smith’s promotion, Joe Earley moves into a newly created role as President, Disney Entertainment Television Franchise and Content Strategy, where he will lead the strategic development of Disney Entertainment Television’s franchises and oversee content and production for international originals. Earley joined Disney in 2019 ahead of the original Disney+ launch and was named President of Hulu in 2022.
Taken together, the two announcements put fresh leadership over both the technical backbone and the day to day streaming strategy of Disney’s direct-to-consumer business in the same week, all reporting up through Dana Walden and D’Amaro. It’s the latest in a string of senior leadership moves across the company this year, following the Disney Experiences leadership shuffle that installed Joe Schott as Walt Disney World President back in May. For a company that has been vocal about making Disney+ the connection point for fans across its parks, movies, and merchandise, hiring a Chief Technology Officer with an AI and infrastructure background while simultaneously elevating the executive running Disney+ and Hulu day to day is not a coincidence of timing, it is a signal of where Disney intends to invest next.
